


Certain Silences

by ellyiggy



Category: Eurovision Song Contest RPF, Festival di Sanremo RPF
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eurovision Song Contest 2018, Festival di Sanremo 2018, Italian musicians, Italian singers, Light Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, MetaMoro, Past Child Abuse, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 14:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15665040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellyiggy/pseuds/ellyiggy
Summary: Ermal takes a long drag from the cigarette held distractedly between his lips, hovering, as he nervously runs a shaky hand through his hair.It will stink of smoke later. But Fabrizio thinks that no smell can be really bad, if smelled in those curls."I am melancholy, Fabbrì. Sometimes it just happens to me. Does it ever happen to you?"Fabrizio swallows in vain and his Adam's apple moves up and down under his beard like a soccer ball in a desert field. He can feel pure fear clawing his heart, making it sink painfully into his chest because Ermal's past scares him so much as to make him physically sick, it is a burden full of sharp stones that cut and lacerate everything they touch and, albeit Fabrizio has always willingly agreed to bleed, with Ermal he fears wounds deep enough to never being able to heal again. It is enough to take a look at Ermal, on the other hand, to understand that his scars sometimes bleed again.





	Certain Silences

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Certi silenzi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13768524) by [CamilleDuDemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamilleDuDemon/pseuds/CamilleDuDemon). 



> It's important that you all know that this work doesn't belong to me, it's a translation. The original work is written in Italian by CamilleDuDemon. I really love MetaMoro and I just wanted to translate this lovely fic in order to share it with whom cannot understand Italian. :)

_Ermal Meta is not a man short on words._  
It is something that Fabrizio figured out immediately, thanks to Ermal's ability of filling an entire room as soon as he sets foot in it, although his own body cannot manage to occupy more space than necessary, so thin as to making him look frailer and skinnier than what he actually is.  
He talks, and his voice reverberates among the walls like a solid substance, intertwining bullshit with such earnest topics that give you goosebumps; constantly moving around as if simply standing still would make him dizzy.  
_Ermal Meta is not even a man of half measures._  
But not tonight, tonight Ermal stands still and completely silent, a statue of salt stretched like the string of an arch just when the archer is in the verge of shooting the arrow. _Most of the time, Fabrizio struggles very hard to grasp and decipher his silences- and he does not hide to himself that such silences, which sometimes prolong for so long that seem to last for years, scare him to death- but, nevertheless, he has almost never courage enough to ask Ermal what's wrong._  
Fabrizio is more frightened by the idea of knowing what shakes and swirls behind those dark irises rather than not knowing at all; therefore, whenever it becomes necessary, he lets Ermal boil in solitude, caressing him occasionally in his own peculiar way of making understand that he is there, there with him, although not interfering.  
He basks in the endearing sweetness filling Ermal's eyes in the everlasting moment they touch lightly, and hopes with all his might that Ermal's bad mood will just pass by itself and that it was not engendered by something he said or did.  
It usually passes, however. The shadow disappears from Ermal's face and they slowly return to live, to breathe, without the weight of a sword of Damocles constantly encumbering on their heads, threatening to behead them both at every step.

_But not tonight._  
The intention was to spend some time together before leaving for Sanremo, so they barricaded themselves in a delightful downtown hotel, to charge and support each other, and everything was perfectly fine until dinner time - when they requested the room service.  
They watched a black-and-white movie on TV, as old as the world.  
Everything was fine.  
Then, suddenly, nothing was fine anymore.  
"Ermal ...", he calls sweetly, from the bed, and the curly head of the younger peeks out from behind the design sofa of the living room.  
They rented a suite. That's not like them, since they both have experience with poverty and deprivations, so there are few sins which they are able to allow themselves light-heartedly, but it was the only room available due to the ridiculous notice with which they booked.  
And anyway, they told themselves, it is just for one night. Nobody will blame them for a night in a suite.  
_Either this, or you live with it._  
When Fabrizio was a child, everyone used to tell him that, and sometimes he still needs to treasure that dazzling example of popular wisdom, stolen from the squalid quarters where he has lived until he ran off his feet, hoping to get rid of them forever. Too bad that those same neighbourhoods seem sewed on his skin, and that only snakes and spiders can molt.  
Fabrizio is neither a spider nor a snake.   
Ermal gives him a forced smile, there, from his safe hiding place.  
"Hey," he says, trying to hide the melancholy behind a mask of apparent and detached ease, a technique that he has painstakingly perfected over the years, yet seeming to be utterly powerless and ineffective against Fabrizio's too attentive eyes, so sincere and transparent as to make Ermal waver.  
"Won't you come to sleep? We have to get up early, tomorrow... "  
Ermal shakes his head imperceptibly, stretching his legs in front of him and spreading them out slowly, like a dancer out of training.  
"Don't worry. I'm used to not sleeping a fuck. "  
Fabrizio does not dare ask for any further clarification. The few times they slept together happened in so precarious situations that both of them didn't manage to sleep a fuck, but only because there were much more urgent things to do than recharge their batteries. Fabrizio decides to merely click his tongue against the palate -how many times has he been told that it is a rude gesture, that it shouldn't be done? This is one of those lessons he seems unable to learn - and to speculate to himself, surrendering to the fact that he can't understand Ermal's silences, not yet, not now.  
Not until he sets his mind on the fact that asking is better than fantasizing about every possible theory, otherwise it will be Ermal himself to take the initiative, dissolving the reserve on what really happens inside his head, of his own free will.

And Fabrizio is well aware that Ermal will never do it, so he'd better deal with it and kick his fear in the ass, the same fear which grabs his throat with cold fingers, taking his voice away.  
Suddenly, Ermal seems to revive and springs to his feet as if an annoying insect bit him, and Fabrizio looks at him from the corner of his eye, while the younger puts on a striped sweater, with very unlikely colours, reminding him of the umbrellas of the bathing establishments depicted in the postcards from the Seventies. Ermal starts to walk across the room in long nervous strides.  
"Where are you going?" He asks, lifting his head slightly, and Ermal turns towards him, on his face the expression of someone who would never expect to find the other still awake.  
"On the terrace, to smoke a cigarette. I took one of yours, I did not want to spread tobacco everywhere ... ", he says in a low voice, like a child caught red-handed stealing candies from the jar without asking for permission.  
Fabrizio throws his bare legs out of the sheets and hurries to wear a pair of jogging pants, looking almost as old as Methuselah. He rapidly puts on a spotted sweatshirt, spoiled by a wrong bleaching, and hurries up to make clear that he is going to follow him.  
"Wait, I'm coming with you" he exclaims, his voice already hoarse from sleep and his heart pounding frantically in his chest because he is not sure he could bear a _'I would rather not'_ as answer.  
But no word comes out from Ermal's lips, which curl up in a heavy, crooked, sad and grateful smile at the same time and perhaps something more - something that Fabrizio still does not understand, like many of the peculiar traits of Ermal's personality.  
When they finally go out on the terrace, they walk in silence, each one standing still and letting themselves be pierced by the blows of the icy wind that slips under their clothes and makes them shiver. Without even realizing it, they begin to gravitate closer and closer, more and more, until their bodies eventually touch, exchanging warmth and a few lazy caresses, as if the wall Ermal has erected between them wasn't solid enough to allow him to cut Fabrizio out for real.  
And yet, it is Fabrizio who has to speak first.  
_Either him or no one, because Ermal is like that._  
And walls erected in order to protect a fragile soul need so little to turn into barriers on which hopes end up dying.  
"Will you tell me what's going on with you?" Thus, he finds himself throwing those words out straightforwardly, too direct.

Ermal takes a long drag from the cigarette held distractedly between his lips, hovering, as he nervously runs a shaky hand through his hair.  
It will stink of smoke later. But Fabrizio thinks that no smell can be really bad, if smelled in those curls.  
"I am melancholy, Fabbrì. Sometimes it just happens to me. Does it ever happen to you?"  
Fabrizio swallows in vain and his Adam's apple moves up and down under his beard like a soccer ball in a desert field. He can feel pure fear clawing his heart, making it sink painfully into his chest because Ermal's past scares him so much as to make him physically sick, it is a burden full of sharp stones that cut and lacerate everything they touch and, albeit Fabrizio has always willingly agreed to bleed, with Ermal he fears wounds deep enough to never being able to heal again. It is enough to take a look at Ermal, on the other hand, to understand that his scars sometimes bleed again.  
Trying to bury that thought under as many layers of bullshit as possible, Fabrizio surrounds Ermal’s waist with his arm and draws him closer to himself, letting the other's curly head rest on his shoulder, tearing him with his sweet weight from all those gruesome ramblings to which he had decided not to yield. And he deliberately ignores his question.  
_Does it ever happen to you?_  
"You should be happy instead. We are going to Sanremo, together. Tomorrow, at this time, maybe we'll still be rehearsing ... ", he tells him, observing with tenderness how unique it is the way Ermal curls his lips when he exhales the smoke, which rises above their heads in light blue twirls to be quickly swallowed by the night sky.  
Ermal lets out a hoarse laugh that sounds more like a cough than a real laugh; he then rubs the back of his head against Fabrizio's shoulder as he shakes his head, arching like a cat looking for attention.  
"Perhaps that’s the point, Fabbrì, it’s just that every time I feel so many emotions together, these tangle up and turn into a black hole that swallows up everything, do you understand?"  
_I do,_ he would like to say, _I understand all too well._ But this is not the right time for him to ruminate on his own past, then he chooses to gently caress the base of the other’s back, clutching between his fingers the little flesh on Ermal’s hips.  
"Then come to bed. Lie down next to me, turn off your brain. Nothing can touch you anymore."  
_And tomorrow morning everything will be over._  
He whispers those words in his hair and, moving like a tightrope walker, he turns off the cigarette in what he hopes to be an elegant ashtray and not an elegant saucer.  
Ermal thinks that if everything was that simple, as simple as Fabrizio said, if a good night's sleep was sufficient to reset the brain and make all his problems disappear and vanish in the early morning light, he would surely sleep more.  
It is such a sweet lie- sweet in its own peculiar way, yes, because Fabrizio is able to be sweet in a way that it is his and only his – and it’s also been invented rather quickly; but pretending to believe it does not cost anything, therefore Ermal lets himself get led again inside the room, with a faint smile on his lips turned white from exhaustion.  
"Thank you", he murmurs when they are in bed, lying face to face, so close that the cold tips of their noses can nearly touch.  
Fabrizio frowns with such a funny expression that would make Ermal laugh so much, were he in the right mood. When he is so perplexed he looks like a child, a child who has been scolded but cannot comprehend the reason why.  
He wonders what he could possibly have done so special for Ermal to even deserve to be thanked.  
Too little, however, from his point of view.  
_He did too little for him._  
"For what?" He asks, and Ermal wrinkles his nose in that expression of his that Fabrizio has learnt to love so much, like a rabbit blinded by the headlights of a running car. The dark shadow of his beard is already visible on his cheeks, and Fabrizio caresses those black, rough spots with the tips of his fingers, delicately, without haste or particular purpose.  
_He caresses him, because he just feels like it, because he wants to make him feel loved even when Ermal believes he does not deserve love._  
"For the fact that you respect my spaces, but you do that without abandoning me...”  
Ermal's eyes shine in the dim light.  
Neither of them is fond of pitch darkness, so they left the shutter doors open and the light from the street lamps seeps through that tiny space, drawing a line of yellowish light on the wooden floor.  
Fabrizio feels almost frightened by those words full of gratitude, speechless by how much Ermal managed to convey within such a little phrase, merely whispered on the tip of those soft lips that Fabrizio would never stop kissing.  
He draws him closer and holds him in his arms, hiding his face into his hair, which smells of wet and city.  
It does not smell like smoke as he had predicted.  
"Now sleep, though," he says softly. "Tomorrow we will not have time to take a nap. Listen to the advice of an old man... "  
Ermal lets out a half amused groan between nose and throat, clutching so tightly to Fabrizio’s body as if almost wanting to melt his bones with Fabrizio’s, fastening himself in that position for the rest of his days.  
"All right," he murmurs in the crook of his neck, and Fabrizio places a silent kiss on his white and perfect ear lobe.  
In the morning it is Fabrizio the first to wake up, when the heavy light of the winter sky hits him full face, milky and greyish, harbinger of cold and damp.  
Ermal is still sleeping, lying on his back, his head tilted on his shoulder like a tired cherub painted in a decadent tableau. From his half-open mouth, with his teeth slightly uncovered, comes a low and languid snoring, so light that it is almost imperceptible.  
The alarm clock will sound soon, but Fabrizio does not care, he wants to watch him a little longer, enjoying the spectacle of his beauty that never fails to take his breath away.  
While he’s lost in the contemplation of the surreal and almost metaphysical beauty of the sleeping younger man, Fabrizio feels a strange sensation, as if the old shirt with which he just slept was wet in the exact point where Ermal laid his face almost up to dawn, moving only when the morning loomed over their room and the light was already starting to change color.  
_He cried,_ he realizes all of a sudden.  
_Ermal cried._  
The mere idea is enough to crumble Fabrizio's heart into a thousand pieces.

He would like to hold him, hold him and protect him from the whole world, even though he already knows that he no longer needs protection.  
_Ermal is someone who can take care of himself._  
He stays there for a while, staring at the hypnotic movement of Ermal's chest rising and lowering with a slow and steady rhythm under the unfastened sheets until the alarm clock rings, bastard, and Ermal grunts quietly, sinking his face into the pillow.  
"Good morning ...", he mumbles . "Is it that time already?"  
Fabrizio shrugs, trying to figure out if there are still any traits of the melancholy of the night before, twisting and distressing him behind his dark pupils, which always seem to burn with fever.  
It seems not, anyway.  
It seems, from the way Ermal looks at him and smiles, that the world is back to normal and that his sadness has vanished, like a soap bubble in the burning sun of July.  
But Fabrizio is well aware that you must always be alert because sadness awaits us all on the doorstep, so he throws his arms around Ermal's neck unexpectedly and hugs him, needing that contact, just to be certain that they are still there, together, that there is no negativity in the world able to divide them.  
Not now.  
Ermal laughs and laughs in his arms, as if someone were actually tickling him, then he pushes Fabrizio away with gentle firmness: the clock is ticking and they have little time available for some mushy stuff.  
"And this? What's this for?" He says, throwing a pair of balled-up socks at Fabrizio without bothering to check whether they are really his.  
Fabrizio rolls his eyes in an expression that it’s halfway between exasperated and amused.  
"Boh. I just felt like it", it is his laconic answer.  
A stupid answer, of course, the typical answer of someone who does not know what to say but does not even want to embarrass himself; but Ermal understood, he understood, nonetheless.  
_He always seems to understand everything._  
He gives him a kiss on the lips. They do not need anything else for now, nothing more.  
He puts a kiss on his lips. They do not need anything else for now, nothing else.  
_And one day even Fabrizio will be able to learn that certain silences should not be necessarily filled._


End file.
